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Now *this* is what the net is good for.

MrsJP has MS, and can I add that phoning ahead is generally a waste of time.

We recently stayed in a hotel at a friends wedding. I emailed *and* phoned to check accessibility. Was told it was completely accessible.

1) The "accessible" room (distinguished by having a floppy grab rail in the bathroom) was in a separate lodge from the main building. True it was on the ground floor, but surrounded by gravel, except for one car parking spot (not reserved). Luckily MrsJP has some mobility.

2) The lodge was separated from the main building by a gravel drive. Try wheeling up that. Luckily we had a car.

3) Inside the main building there were 4" steps everywhere (I've since been told this is a hallmark of several buildings being knocked into one).

4) The disabled toilet was used as a store room.

5) The fire instructions in the lodge were to "assemble by the main building" - see point 2.

Complaints were duly made to the owners (a well known TV chef) and local fire authority.

English Electric Lightning

Don't know about their computers, but the Lightning jet interceptor has to be one of the most striking and iconic aircraft ever flown. 100% British, and gave the Yanks a scare when one *over*flew a U2.

Re: Best common sense tip?

"For the purposes of the act ..."

is an oft-used preamble to UK laws, where something gets defined so as to make it fall under the law.

Drink-driving (for example). You'd think that if you drove pissed on your own land, you'd be immune to the charge, in the same way as you would for speeding. Not a bit of it. The law starts by defining "public road" as any road the public has access to - even if it's on private property. I believe there has been precedent set where people have been convicted even when the land had a closed gate, as the court decided the public could still access the land by climbing the gate.

Yet you try and get your local council to tarmac your drive, and it instantly becomes "private property".

It's not just server location

it's what jurisdiction is the company bound to. Remember, the PATRIOT act enables Uncle Sam to point to *any* company with a US presence, and demand the keys to the kingdom, irrespective of *where* they have located their servers.

It is (still) a worry that a lot of IT "professionals" appear to think that a Google server in Europe is immune to a US snoop or takedown. It isn't.

What is more worrying, is that a lot of firms don't have a rolling overview of their suppliers, meaning that you could contract with a nice EU-centred supplier, who then gets bought by a US company. (Or a company with a US arm), and immediately falls under the spell of the PATRIOT act.

@Mad Mike

Yes, but what is "illegal" exactly. And more importantly, where ? Whilst laws on CP have become fairly aligned in the past decades, there are lots of other areas where laws vary wildly. The UK is a particularly dangerous place in that respect, since a lot of laws rely on "context"[1]. I hope you haven't got a road atlas of the UK, because it could be of use to a terrorist in certain cases.

It's axiomatic that "illegal" will become more widely defined as "stuff the state doesn't want you to know".

[1]For an excellent demonstration of how context affects things, in a humorous setting, may I respectfully suggest you watch "Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle" shown on 22/3/2014

Re: Next up.....

This.

Why do you think - despite the whining of the anti-porn brigade over "net filters", the default for access to adult service lines is ON ? Surely if they want consistency and really are "thinking of the children" then they would insist that all landlines have access to premium rate numbers disabled by default.

Mysteriously this hasn't happened.

Icon, because we had to pay £20 when our (then) 8 year old son quite innocently called an 0898 number on a game for "tips". Then we had to pay £1/month for the "privilege" of having premium rate calls barred.

Re: In other news...

I can see a new game along the lines of "Cheese Shop" developing.

("Cheese Shop" is a game for two players, celebrating the famous Monty Python "Cheese Shop" sketch. One player is the customer, the other the owner. The customer has to list as many different cheeses as he can, whilst the owner has to have a different excuse as to why they haven't got it. The game is lost when a player repeats a cheese, or excuse. Best played after a few bevvies).

Re: T&Cs are not contracts

But they have to be *lawful*. Just because "The T&Cs" say something, doesn't necessarily make it so. How about a T&C which says that in the event of <x> MegaCorp has the right to burn your house down ?

Lost or stolen (or dead)

If, like me, you don't go abroad too often, then how can even know when a passport is lost/stolen ? Mine (and MrsJPs) are kept in a drawer in the "office". I can't remember last time I actually saw they were there (it's now 30 seconds ago ;) ).

So it's quite feasible to acquire a passport not reported stolen, or lost.

Also, what about a dead person ? Does a death certificate automatically notify the passport office ?

Develop, expand, consolidate, decay

RE: Only temporarily.

1) It only has to be temporary. One scrote blinds the camera, whilst another takes it out with a tin of spray paint. As said, you can blind it from such a distance where it can't make out features. Which in my experience of CCTV footage (3 break ins, and it's been useless) is about 20cm.

Except ...

Cycles ...

Microsoft are where they are today, because they thought they could manage the markets. They may as well have tried to manage the weather.

All things go in cycles. You have development, expansion, consolidation, and decay. Where the decay starts, you get development expansion, consolidation, and decay. Incidentally these aren't necessarily linear - you can have development continuing, while expansion starts...

Round our way

Sainsburys give them away free.

I don't know if they're *supposed* to be free, but when I wanted one, the lady at customer services just pointed at a little bowl that had loads of "Nectar" tokens (with a little keyfob) and said "help yourself".

Maybe this will incentivise operators

to stop taking ****ing coins. Maybe I am an odd minority, but because I rarely use cash, I don't have a pocketful of assorted coins available at the drop of a hat. I'm less bothered by vending machines, but parking machines are the worst.

Big up for RingGo here, who run the parking at my local station (Warwick Parkway) and let you pay by card, via a phone call. And QPark who run the parking at the new QE in Brum. They take cards too. Very helpful when you have to rush your son into A&E at no notice, and have no cash.

And don't get me started about machines that don't give change - if I ever have any time left on a ticket I always try to give it to a new arrival.

"Stormi-Lee"

Government and competence

Imagine awarding a contract to build a hospital to a firm who instead of using IEEE approved wiring decided to implement it's own system, with custom made cabling (different colours) and plugs and sockets, maybe with triangular pins, you can only get from one supplier.

Why have I suddenly remembered that R.E.M.

Potholes

Here in Brum, the roads are worse than ones I drove on in Kenya. In 1993. They don't need to have a shovelful of asphalt rolled into the hole, which lasts an afternoon. They need to re-lay the roads from a depth of 2m.

If the "potholes" in my street get any deeper, I shall apply for mineral rights.